“If you have been thinking about getting involved with helping North Korean refugees then here’s your chance. After this workshop is over, you will have a deeper understanding about North Korea, North Korean refugees and to learn about opportunities for you to get directly involved.

* Andrei Lankov, author of The Real North Korea, has confirmed he will deliver the keynote address. This will be a great chance to hear from and talk with someone who has been studying about North Korea for almost three decades.

* We also have two North Korean refugees scheduled to speak at the workshop. One of them was the winner of the third English speech contest hosted by TNKR.

* You will also get to hear directly from representatives of several NGOs actively involved with helping North Korean refugees in Seoul and other places around the world.

I learned some things and also had some things I already knew shaken from the cobwebs in the archives of my mind. I have now given so many speeches that I am ready to get to Q&A to hear what people think. Of course many audiences want to talk about titillating stories about the leaders of the NK regime, I try to be patient, count to 10, remember there was a day I was in their shoes, then answer while trying to encourage them to think about something practical they can do.

It seemed that I had a connection with many people in the room. Sunghoon Kris Moon showed one of Yeonmi Park‘s speeches. Of course, Yeonmi was Ambassador of TNKR and we hosted a podcast together. And we discovered some personal connections.

Rachel Stine was one of the volunteer tutors back when I was the International Adviser to the Mulmangcho School.

Several of our current and past volunteers were at the session. Peter Daley is Mr. Reliable, coming to many of our events in addition to being a tutor and coach in our program. Renee Cummins remains one of our biggest cheerleaders. Eileen Chong has kind of snuck up on me, coming to many of our events, being a coach in our program, helping us with graphics.

Many others. But the woman of the hour was Ana Dols. I meet many people at events who say they want to organize an event. There is a lot of happy talk at events, with people saying they will do one thing or another, then when they leave the event, it seems they forget to do most of what they have said. But not Ana. She followed through, kept the speakers updated, then she got it done! Don’t call her a by-stander!”

I feel overwhelmed by North Korean People’s suffering. I have so many questions about North Korea:

How does all this start? How are human rights in North Korea limited? How do North Koreans escape North Korea? Where do they go? Where do they hide? How does this harrowing journey to freedom pass? What are the North Korean Diaspora destinations? What happens to North Korean Defectors in China? What’s China’s strategy for North Korean Defectors? Who are the people helping to deliver North Koreans to safety? How well do North Korean Defectors integrate into South Korea? Which challenges do they face?

And here is the most important one: how can I help North Korean Defectors?

Last Thursday, I went to the Express Bus Terminal to buy a few stationary things for my next Workshop, Far From Heaven. The Unspeakable Lives of North Korean People. On my way to my favorite stationer’s shop, I crossed Shinsegae Department Store. All of a sudden everything seemed to me so surreal. Cleef and Arpels. La Prairie. Everything so clean. Everything so white. The perfect portrait of luxury. I had to stopped for a few seconds.

I remembered thinking: this world is so weird!

Potato #345 (2010) by Kevin Abosch. A photo of an Irish potato taken by a world-famous visual artist has sold for more than $1 million.

A look at Barbie’s new body types, including tall, curvy and petite. Photo: Barbie

Found on Pinterest.

It is not easy to deal with all this ordeal. So many people ( all these unbearable figures). So much pain indeed. What can we do? we asked ourselves. We suffer because we believe we cannot alleviate this evil. There is a sadness trace in our hearts although the day-to-day life might keep us busy enough to take all this suffering off our mind.

“What can we do? You know, What can we do?” But this feeling of helplessness is just a another limiting belief. Limiting beliefs constraint us in some way. They are only what we think though, there is no necessarily truth in them. How do we fight them?

There is only a way to fight a limiting belief: to exchange it by another more powerful and empowering one. Here we are that I believe that we can help North Korean People.

I have created Far From Heaven. The Unspeakable Lives of North Korean People because I truly believe in solidarity and there is always a chance to challenge the status quo. We can help North Korean Defectors to find freedom and let them master their own lives. If you come next February, 29th you will see it firsthand.

Let me tell you what we have planned for next Monday, February 29th.

Finally, I would like to underline the bi-dimensional approach of this workshop. First, the participatory approach.There is a great panel of speakers but somehow we will manage to hear your voice because we do need to hear you.

Secondly, the positive approach opposite a victim-oriented approach. We want to focus on how we can offer higher quality support to North Korean defectors – empowering more of them to create lasting change in their lives and communities around.

For most people North Korea remains a mystery. “Far From Heaven, The Unspeakable Lives of North Korean People”, is a workshop to explore what North Korea is and what it’s like to be a North Korean.

In addition to that, we wish to contribute to change the victim-focused approach and fixed mindsets about North Korean Defectors and Refugees. We would like to emphasize on post-resettlement success stories, rather than to show them as symbols of evil.

“Generally, people think of North Korea merely as our enemy or a people to pity;” “We are trying to change this, looking at North Korea as two entirely different entities: its citizens and its government.” (Jun Young Ji, for The Daily Dot).

You are invited to visit our board on Pinterest for additional background information.

My name is Ana Dols and live in Seoul. I am the womenlabkorea catalyst and my goal is to use women’s collective intelligence as a driver to generate some impact in their lives and in the lives of women around them.

For this womenlabtalk we have a group of very special guest speakers with powerful stories to both astonish and move you.

Sunghoon Kris Moon will begin by helping us to understand what it means to live under the most repressive totalitarian regime today and how all this Orwellian machinery has been able to serve so well the regime’s purposes. She considers herself both a native and foreigner to Korea and will lead the talk through the keen lens of her dual identity on what North Korea is and who the North Koreans are.

In order to complete this picture, the talk then will continue by listening to Korean Refugees, learners from Teach North Korean Refugees (TNKR), how they struggle to adjust to the outside world, as “freedom is only half the battle” Hyeonseo Lee states.

Afterwards, Casey Lartigue, who cofounder along with Eunkoo Lee of Teach North Korean Refugees (TNKR), will explain how this organization provides English learning opportunities to refugees for determining their places in society. More than 200 refugees and 300 volunteers have participated in TNKR since Mr. Lartigue and Ms. Lee co-founded it in March 2013.

Finally, Rachel Stine will go over the Underground Railroad System that brings North Korean refugees to freedom, how activists are sending seeds to poor North Korean families, and English teaching opportunities for women and how they have established vibrant and flourishing communities.

Rachel Stine teaching English to North Korean Refugees

There is much to learn about North Korea and many ways to support North Korean people to fulfill their potential and their own dreams.

Please join us on February 29th, 2016 when you will have the opportunity to learn firsthand where your donations are going and the massive impact they have. All proceeds will be donated to the TNKR and the Underground Railroad System Project.

At womenlabkorea, we are inspired by remarkable women and women’s organizations, and so we set out to tell stories that highlight women’s lives and their role in South Korea.

We believe that one voice or one story can make a difference and that is why we are rallying female entrepreneurs, expat women, nonprofit founders, bloggers, and more to share their voice and insight.

This time our speaker will be Soohee Kim, a Korean entrepreneur and Korean Language teacher.

Inspired by the true story of Jang-Geum, -an apprentice cook that became the first female royal physician of the Joseon Dynasty-, Ms Kim will tell us her own story of perseverance and her own vision of this fascinating country’s impressive achievements.

Daejanggeum TV Series Original Picture.

All proceeds will be donated to programs supporting North Korean refugees and participants’ support will make an enormous and powerful impact.

Next Thursday, December 3rd will talk too about Dae Jang Geum (Hangul: 대장금; hanja: 大長今 also known as Jewel in the Palace, a 2003 Korean television series directed by Lee Byung-hoon.

This epic South Korean drama tells the tale of an orphan cook who went on to become the king’s first female physician in a time when women held little influence in society.

It is based on the true story of Jang-geum, the first female royal physician of the Joseon Dynasty. The main themes are her perseverance and the portrayal of traditional Korean culture, including Korean Royal Court cuisine and traditional medicine.

The theme song, Onara (Korean: 오나라) is in Old Korean. The song is in the pansori style, a particular type of Korean music that emerged during the Joseon Dynasty and was very popular in the 19th century.

It is a beautiful and catchy song…Listen to it and be captured by its rythm…We wait for you next Thursday…

On Thursday, May 7th we celebrated another #WMLABTALKS event, our inspirational thought-provoking lectures. WE ARE KOREAN WOMEN!

Along with Hye-Rim Kwon, a Korean journalist, we talked tête à tête about how Korean women view their past and face modernity.

Hye Rim and her friends.

This was our plan for the day and sticked to it quite enough.

Our Schedule Program for the day.

The first thing was the coffee mingle and taste the traditional Spanish tapapantumaca, a Catalonian breakfast or snack. People loved this simple but tasty Spanish dish.

You might be surprised by the name, “The Spanish FIKA” but there is a sentimental story behind. FIKA was our first #wmlabtalk and we liked very much this unique Swedish coffee break that we wanted to pay tribute to it by named it like that.

After we recharged our batteries it was time to get inspired…

We began our presentation. We talked about women, about Korean women and Korean Women’s greatest achievements. We talked about democracy, gender equality and the increase of women’s power in Korean society.

Important Korean Women

However we wanted not only to celebrate Korean Women’s achievements but to go just a little more further. More than spectators we wanted women to interact and discuss. We intended so to set a female-focused collective dialogue to break down stereotypes and go beyond clichés. It was difficult though, always is.

We thought that the only way to do it properly was through a “World Café” dynamic.

The World Café.

According to Wikipedia, the “World Café” is a structured conversational process that fosters an open and intimate discussion and link ideas within a larger group to get access to the “collective intelligence” in the room.

In World Café the focus is on exploring on themes and not on problem-solving and that was what we were after for: to enrich our perspective on Korean Women and give a certain basis for a further intimate reflection.

Small groups of six or seven participants sat around the tables and discussed open-ended questions for a structured amount of time. Individuals switched tables where a “table host” at the new table briefly welcomed people and filled them in on highlights of the earlier discussion.

In this way participants gather a wide range of inputs that help strengthen the ‘ecology’ of the conversation.

The world café session

These were our questions…

Korea has come so far in fifty years, how have women driven that growth?; What are the challenges that women face in Korean society?; What are the challenges that South Korean Women will face in the future?

I think that this World Café was able to deepen the discussion about being a woman in South Korea and maybe widen our viewpoints.

After the World Café, Hye-Rim Kwon taught us about the Sogokju, the Korean 1500 year old beverage and its legend around…

The story of Sogokju. “A long time ago, during the Joseon Dynasty a man who was on his way to Seoul to take a state exam , stopped at a tavern…”

After the storytelling we toasted with Sogokju and we could not find a better closure for our workshop than to read, both in Korean and in English, some excerpts of Simcheongjeon a story of Korean Pansori storytelling tradition.

Simcheong is a girl whose mother died in childbirth. She cares for her blind father… She is the perfect model of Confucian devotion…We found interested to end with this story and use her “own” words to foster our imagination, forgetting about the story and focusing on the philosophical message.

WE ARE KOREAN WOMEN is a female-focused collective dialogue to challenge stereotypes and clichés about being a woman in South Korea. Korean journalistHye-Rim Kwon and I will foster reflection on how Korean women view their past and face modernity.

But more than a workshop, WE ARE KOREAN WOMEN will be a celebration!

We will practise yogafit with Uliana Golovko and taste the traditional Spanish tapapantumaca, a Catalonian breakfast or snack.

Next, we will enjoy a violin recital of Spanish pieces by Korean violin instructor Kang So Eun.

Following the recital, we will begin our presentation and open dialogue. Korea has come so far in fifty years, how have women driven that growth? What are the challenges that women face in Korean society?

We seek to break down stereotypes and go beyond cliches by means of a creative and collaborative dialogue, in which there is not a predetermined answer or solution.

Inspired by the Juanita Brown and David Isaacs’ “World Café”methodology, WE ARE KOREAN WOMEN intends to facilitate open and intimate discussion, focusing on exploring on themes rather than on problem-solving, providing an appropriate environment that encourages everyone’s contribution and allows to connect diverse perspectives.

THE WORLD CAFE: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter by Juanita Brown and David Isaacs

Then, we will taste and learn aboutHansanSogokju, the 1500 year old beverage with an unique scent and sweet flavor.

Finally we will be captured by Simcheongjeon (심청전), one the stories of Korean Pansori storytelling tradition, officially recognized by UNESCO as an important piece of world culture.Simcheong is a girl whose mother died in childbirth. She cares for her blind father, with the utmost care, the perfect model of Confucian devotion… [It will be interesting to discuss about this stereotypes in our round table discussions].

“Pansori”, often referred to as Korean Opera, is a type of traditional Korean music.

In “Pansori” two musicians are sharing the spotlight, a singer, named “sorikkun”, and a drummer called ”gosu”. Through his singing, words, and body language, the singer plays the central role while the drummer plays an accompanying role by providing the rhythm and shouting words of encouragement and passion to the performance, which totally reminds me to the Flamenco music in Spain.

In following video you can watch and listen to Jen Shyu, playing the “sorikkun in a representation sponsored by the National Gugak Center in Seoul, South Korea.

The scenes sung here are from “Drifting Along In the Sea” (범피중류) when Simcheong kills herself by jumping into the water in order to regain her father’s sight and “Simbongsa Opens His Eyes” (심봉사 눈 드는 대목) when her father regains his sight. It was recorded in 2013.

In our WE ARE KOREAN WOMEN we will read an excerpt from that final scene, when her father suddenly regains his sight and, like a wave across the earth, all people and even animals recover from blindness and see the bright world…

I want women to see! I want women to regain their self-esteem! There are lots of stereotypes and lots of glass ceilings to break, but the first ones are only in our minds!.

Prepare to be surprised!

If you wish to participate in “We are Korean Women” meeting on Thursday 7th May, please complete this succinct survey http://goo.gl/forms/E6qsPe6mP0 by Wednesday 6th May, to allow us to prepare this meeting with the greatest care.